Wisconsin native, conservative critic of everything.
"Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God." ---G K Chesterton
"The only objective of Liberty is Life" --G K Chesterton
"Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions" --G K Chesterton
"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Palin and McPain

The only reason that John McCain even has a chance in this election is because of Sarah Palin. No one cares about the “maverick.” Before he selected her to be his running mate the only reason people were thinking of voting him was because they were deathly afraid of having a progressive loon like Obama in the White House. Much of the support for McCain is still largely anti-Obama sentiment, but now there are people genuinely excited about the Republican ticket because it contains the most truly conservative candidate on the ticket since Reagan left the scene. While McCain can barely fill small auditoriums at his rallies, Palin has people lined up for nearly a mile to catch a glimpse of her.

Those who despise Sarah Palin are the very same people who gave us the turd sandwich called John McCain. They thought that the Republican Party could once again return to its Rockefeller (non) glory days. The fact that Palin conservatism is vastly more appealing than McCain conservatism has got to be a tremendous disappointment to those operating under the delusion that they could recapture control of the Republican Party. Sorry guy, but no dice. If McCain loses next Tuesday - and I am going out on the limb of limbs in predicting that he WILL NOT - then that paves the way for traditional conservatives to solidy control within the party for the 2010 and 2012 elections. Even if McCain wins, the strong possibility that he will step down after one term means that Sarah Palin will be the next GOP nomineeLook, folks. McCain's campaign has been horrible; it began as a cult-of-personality thing and is ending sounding as though he's channeling Reagan. But in reality, that's because there's no there there in McPain. To call him 'erratic' is accurate, but does not capture him.

In the end, McCain's political philosophy is non-existent. Period. It's day-to-day; it's ad-hoc.It's reported that the Pubbie Poohbahs are retreating to the Bat-Cave after the election to 'figure it all out' again.

They would do better to ask Palin her thoughts and unanimously agree to adopt them as the next Party platform.

13 comments:

Anonymous
said...

it's true the liberal illuminati have done a great job and the conservatives have absolutely ran a horrible campaign. BUT if what your saying is true why don't the Republicans just kick McCain to the curb and put Palin on the ticket? I agree she is holding up this think but it just seems like this think went south a long time ago.

I don't disagree that the GOP has a lot of pondering to do after this poorly-run campaign, but I can assure you that Sarah Palin will not be leading anyone out of the wilderness. Unfortunately, her rhetoric all too often descends into that smarmy, exploitative form of ignorant rural populism that Mike Huckabee and John Edwards tried (and failed) to make work.

The future of a successful GOP (or any political party) isn't a bunch of rural, blue collar voters with high school degrees - but that's where Sarah Palin's very limited appeal centers on.

The party doesn't need to look for the next Reagan - but it should find someone who is philosophically grounded in conservatism, respects the intellectuals of the party, and was pragmatic in his course of action.

Palin is resounding anti-intellectual in her approach, which is a huge turn-off to most voters with college degrees who actually think going to schools like Harvard and Yale can be a good thing. Most of us in the middle want intelligent, thoughtful leaders, and not a woman who bounced around a bunch of community colleges. Sometimes a little elitism is okay.

Reagan succeeded in getting the Bible-thumpers on board without letting them near the steering wheel. Future GOP success will be dependent on the ability to put that genie back in the bottle while keeping its support. Hardly an enviable task at this point.

RSDon't know what water holes you're hanging around but conservatives in general are very happy to be "lead" by Palin. In fact, "the elites" are exactly who have brought us McCain...a moderate at best who would already be back at his day job if he had taken another moderate for his VP.

There's a thinking in the beltway that if you're not from "the beltway" or have an ivy league diploma than you're just a hick. The problem is that most of us hicks know that in real life we've worked with plenty of ivy league folks and "elites" who didn't have the common sense of an ear of corn.

I've found time and again throughout my career that people who have heart and a proven track record are much more likely to outperform the fancy degree, smooth talking folks. Like too many of our elected officials, the ivy league diplomas are more focused on what's in it for them than for the job they were hired to do!

Reagan also had an accomplished career as an actor (something that came in handy) and was the governor of America's most populous state.

Sarah Palin has a communications degree from a C-rate school in the middle of nowhere and a "borrowed" $150K wardrobe and a husband who races "snow machines." She's the Elly May Clampett of the Republican Party - perfect to run for a rural red-state governorship, terrible to be on a national ticket.

This whole "hate the people with fancy degrees" and "we want people who are like us" mentality is precisely what's killing the Republican Party. Building a party around a bunch of blue-collar voters with high school diplomas is a terrible strategy now and an even worse strategy in the long term.

I'm not saying that Harvard or Yale is a requirement. Hardly. What I am saying is that the Republican Party needs to find a way to bury its rabid anti-intellectualism and embrace people of ideas. Frankly, I don't think that, were he still alive, William F. Buckley would be all that welcome in the Sarah Palin/Mike Huckabee GOP. He may well have written the column his son wrote in endorsing Obama.

There's a reason that when you break it down, Democrats are pulling in more money not just from lawyers, but also from doctors, bankers, and increasingly small business owners. There's been a huge shift in partisan giving among the professional class, and it's because those people are uncomfortable with populist panderers like Palin and the increasingly theological drumbeat within the party. Palin, Huckabee, and John Edwards are all preaching variants of the same message, and it just isn't one that will sell among middle-class suburbanites who are increasingly white collar and increasingly college educated. You know, the people who *used* to be the core of the GOP neighborhoods.

And that's what scares me: a GOP that would rather spend all its time talking about values and none of it talking about ideas. You don't win elections by being a good person. You win elections by having an agenda. What killed the GOP in 2006 and what will kill it again this year is that the party is intellectually bankrupt. I'm not suggesting the Democrats are any better in that regard, but imagine how much better equipped the GOP would be to fight if it actually had a message to sell other than the one-party boogeyman. If the party still had a Ronald Reagan or a Newt Gingrich around to put together and sell a cohesive, conservative-leaning agenda.

Finally, let's accept that it wasn't the elites that pushed McCain on anyone. It was the fact that the Republicans didn't have a single person in the primary other than McCain with a campaign team that didn't shoot themselves in the foot. Rudy had a terrible strategy, Fred screwed around for too long, and Romney was a waffling Mormon. Even McCain's people ran the whole thing into the ground last summer before resurfacing. This whole cycle has been a train wreck for the GOP. They all ran bad camapigns and McCain's just happened to suck a little bit less. Or do you think the GOP would've been better off with Huckabee?

In principle, I agree with much of what you said but disagree with the "intellectual" having ideas part.

Conservatism has its principles and ideas should come from that. Unfortunately, unlike liberalism where everything is sold with "what's in it for you", Conservatism is ultimately, but not obviously, "what's in it for me." And that's the problem.

Too many of the "intellectuals" don't want to spend the time explaining to us hicks, why their ideas are the right ones. Instead of investing that time, they move to the center and try to make Conservatism palatable by mixing in some "goodies". That is the road to ruin.

Reagan's success was not from blazing the trail with great or new conservative ideas. Reagan's success was in being able to explain how and why conservative principles were the right answer.

I'm not suggesting Palin should lead the Conservative movment, not yet anyway. However, she should be at the adult table when the Conservatives gather for the holidays.

Both of you are suggesting that Reagan's success was as a messenger and not as an inventor, something I would completely agree with. And I think the key to Reagan's success was that while he often gently sounded themes of social conservatism, he rarely if ever tried to direct his agenda in such a way that it looked like his primary goal was to pander to social conservatives.

Republicans do best in big elections when they have candidates that can clearly articulate ideas relating to the economy and national defense. Those, in the long term, will always be the winning issues for Republicans because they are the issues that allow them broadest appeal.

The problem comes when Republicans become identified primarily as the party trying to deliver on some religiously-tinged social agenda - abortion, gay marriage, school prayer, stem cell research, etc. I'm not criticizing anyone's beliefs on those issues (right now), just pointing out that they have been (and will continue) terrible issues for the GOP in the long run. The gay marriage ballots, for instance, have been nothing more than a series of Pyrrhic victories for Republicans. Even a lot of people who voted for those initiatives thought that the energy devoted to that cause was largely misdirected.

Whatever people think of Newt (I happen to think the guy is brilliant), the Contract with America was a great example of a winning agenda for Republicans. It talked about fiscal responsibility, crime, tax reform, tort reform national security, and job creation. *These* are the 70%/30%, winning issues for Republicans. The sooner the GOP gets back to them, the sooner it can turn things around.

Finally, if it's about a good messenger, Palin fails right there. She's inarticulate and has an accent that simply makes her sound uneducated. Put her at the grown-up table, sure, but don't pass the baton to her in 2012 unless you want to see her become the new Walter Mondale.

As important as social conservative issues are to me, I do agree that there is a lot of stress on them in a national election. Although they are important, others that the GOP has aren't being stressed enough.

I also agree that Palin was brought in to wrangle that vote.

You mention that McCain was going nowhere fast without the social conservative vote, or any vote for that matter, before Palin. Right on point there. That's WHY she was brought in. And that's WHY she talks about these issues.

McCain has some good ideas, Defense, Drilling and continuation of the Bush Tax cuts. His problem is that he isn't articualte enough on these issues and can't articulate on the social stuff at all.

Bottom line. The election has two outcomes.

1. McCain wins by a narrow margin because of the very important addition of Palin.

2. Obama wins by a lot, not because of his "brilliant" ideas, but because of his ability to attach McCain to Bush and the desire for change.